As to soul sleep, that has never been my position, yet sometimes I have to wonder why not? For example, I don't see the following making logical sense unless soul sleep is maybe true. I'm just trying to be objective here is all.
John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
The ones He was talking to at the time, they are obviously dead by now, and that He was obviously including them. Meaning verse 3 makes zero sense if they are already in heaven once they died, which would mean they are already where He is, yet the text states that He first has to come again, and then He receives them unto Himself, then where He is, there they may be also.
David, thank you for your objectivity. Though I long to be objective, too, may emotions cloud my judgment too often. So you're better than me, I'm sure.
Please let me share some metaphysics with you because I think my belief may be compatible with yours.
Like many other devout Christians, you probably know Dr. William Lane Craig is a brilliant apologist. He is also a substance dualist. He believes that he's a spirit living in a body in something like the way you live in a tent when you camp. So I'll look up the Bible passages he and Dr. J.P. Moreland would quote to support dualism.
Dr. Moreland and I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas's dualism. For us, each human person is composed of a body and an immaterial immortal soul that makes that body human. We would argue that our souls are parts of us that survive when we die. In our opinion, the essence of death is that the soul leaves its body. So I think that since my soul will leave my body when I die, Our Lord will need to reunite it with my body when he resurrects that body. He'll rebuild me, if you will.
Catholics believe that heaven and hell are conditions and places. If my soul goes to heaven, it'll see God face-to-face. But since my disembodied immaterial soul can't take up space, it won't be in any physical place. Our Lord is in a physical one now because he still has his body. Damned souls and demons are suffering in hell. But they're not in physical places either. So when we say a soul, an angel, or a demon is somewhere, we mean that he she, or it is making things happen there. Damned souls will get their bodies back when Christ comes again. But demons and other angels will always be bodyless spirits.
I don't know whether we'll find literal mansions in heaven, though hope we do. But Catholics believe that Christ's point about many mansions is a metaphor for degrees of holiness. In
The Catechism of the Council of Trent, a chapter describes the properties the Catholic Church thinks our resurrected, glorified bodies will. For example, they'll glow because our souls will be happy. We'll never feel pain. If we want to go somewhere, we'll get the at the speed of thought. We'll be able to walk through solid objects they way Our Lord walked through the upper room's closed door after he rose from the dead. . .
Heaven is much, much different from earth whether we're talking about a condition, a place, or both. In fact, if it makes sense to say that space and time began together, before they did that, the Holy Trinity was literally nowhere, i.e., in no physical place.
I reflect on these weird thoughts because I earned a BA degree in philosophy and studied that subject in graduate school. I also proofread scholarly Catholic books for a friend of mine. So you probably know that I prefer theory to practice. Don't worry, though, I'm not called to be a pastor.
